Sara Sharif’s neighbours feared being called racist if they reported abuse

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/13/sara-sharif-neighbours-report-abuse-fear-racist-woking/

Posted by TheTelegraph

28 comments

  1. ***The Telegraph reports:***

    Sara Sharif’s neighbours did not report their concerns that she was being abused to police because they were scared of being called racist, a safeguarding review has found.

    The 10-year-old schoolgirl was found dead at her home in Woking, Surrey, on Aug 10 2023, after being beaten, burned, hooded and strangled.

    [Urfan Sharif](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/20/unduly-lenient-40-sentence-sara-sharif-father-review/), Sara’s father, 43, and Beinash Batool, her stepmother, 31, were sentenced to life in prison last year for her murder after subjecting her to years of “inconceivable cruelty”.

    Surrey Safeguarding Children Partnership commissioned a safeguarding practice review after their conviction. The review found [wide-ranging failings](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/11/sara-sharif-crime-child-abuse-hijab-will-forster-nspcc/) by a number of authorities.

    It has found that neighbours of the family were scared to report “concerns about what they heard” going on in the Sharif household.

    “They feared being branded as being racist, especially on social media,” the authors of the report wrote.

    “While understanding their point of view, this is concerning that race was a bar to reporting possible child abuse and it needs to be overcome.”

    A former neighbour of the Sharif family – from when they lived in West Byfleet – said at the criminal trial at the Old Bailey last year that she often heard Batool “almost hysterical, screaming” at Sara and her siblings and using abusive language towards them.

    The neighbour admitted she never contacted the police or social services about her concerns, saying that despite the noise she never saw the children with bruising or injuries.

    **Read more:** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/13/sara-sharif-neighbours-report-abuse-fear-racist-woking/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/13/sara-sharif-neighbours-report-abuse-fear-racist-woking/)

  2. What’s being accused of being racist gotta do with saving a life. Cop out statement.

  3. Complete idiots, utter scum. They knew what was happening and let it happen because they are morons.

    People can’t keep using it as an excuse.

  4. As Martin Luther King said – It is always the right time to do the right thing.

  5. If those neighbours knew she was being abused and did nothing, they have no excuses. Blaming imaginary woke mobs for turning a blind eye while a ten year old suffered and was ultimately murdered.

  6. Just sounds like people making excuses for themselves. Can’t report suspected child abuse, sorry, Karen on Facebook might find out and call me racist

  7. She was also home schooled. I’ve been home schooled and had an abusive parent who had then 24/7 access to her 2 children. The argument isn’t its always bad, the argument is the chances of abuse going un noticed is much higher.

  8. While i understand that they should have said something, look at what has happened to people when dealing with that community. Mothers being forced to apologise to a community because their son dropped a quaran, teachers being forced to leave their lives behind because the community forced them out. No wonder people are scared. It’s all very well saying you’d do it but if they’re living next door to you then it’s different. Ive lived next door to paramilitary families in NI. I kept my mouth shut if anything happened.

  9. I would have reported it and risked being called racist. I can deal with that. I couldn’t deal with doing nothing and this being the outcome.

  10. To be honest who can say if the police would have taken action even if it had been reported.

  11. I will be harsh on this, but that’s how you destroy your own country and the future of the children of your own race

    And this one of the foolish thing you can do, consider how hard you ancestors fought and worked to build you such beautiful country and society

  12. Just sounds like an excuse to me, sorry. How on earth would people on social media know that you’ve reported them to the police? I think we’re all losing a grip on reality here

  13. A bit like the security guard at Manchester Arena, who spotted the bombers but didn’t do anything because he was worried about being called a racist.

    Or the council staff who knew about the Rotherham grooming gangs, but didn’t do anything because they were worried about being called racist.

    And they were right to be worried.

    When a teacher flagged that the man who murdered those little girls in Southport posed a potential threat, she was immediately accused of being a racist by social workers:
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15221805/Headteacher-sinister-Southport-killer-Axel-Rudakubanas-racially-profiling.html?ito=native_share_article-nativemenubutton

    In my opinion, an awful lot of nice Guardian-readers who enjoy calling other people racist need to be fired from their jobs and possibly treated as co-defendents.

  15. They feared being called racist? That’s their problem. Should have just called it out

  16. This smells like a bullshit excuse for not doing anything.

    There are numerous ways you can report child abuse anonymously and even if you do give your name the people you report aren’t told who reported them.

  17. Blood on lefty hands again. The conditions they are trying to impose on good people is unpalatable, and can result in death.

    When you see comedy sketches about white people being petrified of being labelled racist, you know that exists. It’s tragic.

  18. Absolutely would care less about how im perceived if a child is in clear danger

  19. **Doubt**

    Anonymous tips are a thing if you’re afraid of reporting child abuse.

  20. The “You can’t say or do anything these days because you’ll be called a racist” brigade really out in force here today, huh

  21. It’s very convenient that it’s *always* that things are too woke.

  22. People should speak up if they suspect anything where kids are concerned.

    We had a potential buyer to our house who raised a lot of red flags. Lived a short distance away. We are in our fifties and downsizing. She was in her late sixties and buying a three bedroom house ?? .. Very interested in what ages our neighbours children were. Asking questions about how many times we saw people walk past. That our loft was very quiet, it’s floored and walled with carpet down, and how “no one would hear anything up there”. She admitted to attending community functions in previous weeks and asking about us, our neighbours and how quiet the area was. Very weird. She put in an offer, we rejected it. Having done some research we found that her son was in jail for having indecent images of young boys on his phone. He was shopped by his girlfriend. And he had a previous conviction for molesting young boys. Mother had moved after the first conviction, he came with her. Now that he had been caught again she was looking to move somewhere else and he would most probably have arrived after his sentence. Our house is about 50 metres away from the only children’s play park in the town.

    This woman had been defending her son for years. Her questions to us were certainly not what you would expect on a home visit.

    This guy had molested kids twice. If we had said nothing and he moved into the area ?? .. Doesn’t bear thinking about.

    If red flags are being raised in your head .. there’s a reason for that.

  24. Hope these perpetrators meet the same fate as the list prophets guy

  25. I’d really like to speak my mind here, but I don’t want to be arrested.

  26. Can’t even read this.

    Fucking monsters..

    This is a prime example of why we should have capital punishment IMO.

  27. It’s either “child abuse is part of their culture so this is normal.”

    Or “that child is clearly being abused but I listen to Fox News/BBC and I fully believe that white people are being persecuted more than ever so for my own white safety, if she dies she dies. I am the real victim here. The woke mob will kill my own white babies if I say anything. Or I will lose my job and my home and my white kids will be raped by immigrants if we become homeless. Whatever happens to that child in reality, it will be better than what happens to me in my imagination.”

    Or “I am super racist so if I report this, no one will take me seriously anyway. They’ll think I’m the boy crying wolf because I call the police on all people of color regardless of what they’re doing and I was warned by the authorities to be less racist, so my hands are tied. I can’t even make an anonymous call. The police are sick of my racism. They’ve had it. One more report and they’ll dox me.”

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